by Sophia Lynn
Kashif flinched.
“I came looking for you expecting to find you with Lady Laila. I did not see her immediately, and instead I saw you with, well…”
“You saw me with her brother,” she said, her tone rising. “He's one of the most respected journalists in the country, he's done so much for – Kashif, why?”
Kashif's mouth pressed in a thin line.
“I haven't seen you properly for days, I had no idea what you were doing.”
“You could have asked!” Honey stormed in return. “You could always ask me in the morning at breakfast, or if you cared to do so, you could have Fatima tell you! It's not a secret! I have a schedule and I have very skilled people who maintain it for me.”
“Honey, I came in here and saw you with a man I didn't remember meeting—'
“Standing!” she cried. “I was standing with him in front of his sister in a library!”
“I know that now,” Kashif snapped. “Honey, it was an honest mistake...”
She shook her head, throwing up her hands. In the back of his mind, Kashif couldn't stop himself from being aware of how lovely she was even when she was angry, how color rose up high on her cheeks and her eyes were as bright as stars.
“No,” she said. “I don't think I can talk about this now. I have to get ready, I'm due at a dinner for literacy in—”
“You're not,” Kashif forced himself to say, and Honey stared at him.
“Why not?” she asked, and there was a bewildered note in her voice that would almost have been funny if Kashif wasn't suddenly feeling very, very guilty.
“Because I had Fatima cancel it,” he said. “And all of your other engagements this evening.”
“Why?”
Kashif could feel a blush rising up on his own cheeks as he realized what he would have to say; that he had cancelled her engagements, her work, simply because he had some ideas about sweeping her off her feet.
Before he could humiliate himself by spitting that out, however, Honey shook her head.
“It doesn't matter,” she said. “None of it matters, does it? Not when you've made a decision.”
He might have reminded her that as the sheikh, his word, while not precisely law, was the next best thing, but he knew that wouldn't really help his cause.
She took one last look at him, perhaps hoping he would say something that would make the last few minutes make some sense, and then she walked out of the library. He would have felt better if she had slammed the door behind her, but instead she closed it with a calm and quiet dignity that was somehow worse. Then he was alone in the library, still stunned by his reaction, by what had happened, by all of it.
Chapter Seven
Honey
Honey's first impulse was to go hide in her suite. It made sense. It was her place if anywhere in the palace was. It was safe, secure, it had all of the things that reminded her of the United States within its walls.
However, she knew that if she returned to her own suite, she would be next to her own bed, and right now, she couldn't take that. That bed was where it had all started to go wrong, and right this moment, she didn't think that she could afford any more distress or confusion.
I thought … well, it doesn't matter what I thought. I suppose what matters is that I'm on call for Kashif whenever he wants me to be.
She had known girls who were like that. Their boyfriends ignored them until they wanted something, and they expected their girlfriends to drop everything and jump up the moment they barked.
Of course, Kashif would never bark. He was too handsome, too charming, and simply too smart for that. Instead, he would simply rely on his smile, on his charm, on the heat that she could still remember in his kisses to get his way. He could keep her trailing after him like that, always waiting for his attention or for another kiss, and no.
She couldn't live like that.
Instead of going to her suite, she made her way down to the gardens and to the secret pool she had found there a few days ago. There was an Olympic size pool in the palace as well as an enormous hot tub, but this pool was something special. Nestled deep in the garden, in a part entirely inaccessible to the public, it was lined with smooth stone instead of tile, and it was surrounded by tall grass and trees. One of the maintenance men she'd asked had said it was designed for swimming, but Honey didn't bother with a suit.
She didn't feel much like swimming at the moment, but she still found the water soothing as she settled on the edge, letting her feet dangle in.
She sat listening to the rippling water, and then she covered her face with her hands.
What am I doing? I can't just avoid him forever, but what am I supposed to do when he could potentially win any fight we have just by smiling at me like he did before? Just by leaning over and kissing me like he did before...
She couldn't let herself think about it too much. If she did, she would be right back in their wedding night. She had had a plan, and it did not involve losing her silly little heart over a man who had appeared on her door and proposed a marriage of convenience less than fifteen minutes later.
I don't think he even made it as far as fifteen minutes, she thought desultorily.
She leaned down to trail her fingers through the water, watching as her reflection distorted in the setting sun. The heat was fierce in Allatf, but there was an underlying chill setting in as the sun went down.
“It gets cold by the water at night,” Kashif said from behind her. “You'll likely need a jacket or at least a shawl before too long.”
“Is that a fact?” Honey asked without turning around. “What are you doing out here?”
There was a heavy sigh from behind her. She heard Kashif shifting on the gravel path behind her, but he came no closer.
“I came looking for you,” he said. “I wanted to talk about what happened.”
“I don't,” she said, and then before he could respond, she shook her head. “But we should, shouldn't we? If we're going to last long enough for you to get your reforms through, we can't have blow-ups over every little thing.”
“You didn't have the blow up, I did,” Kashif said wryly. “Honey, as pretty as your hair is, I really shouldn't be having this conversation with the back of your head. Can I sit down?”
It was on the tip of Honey's tongue to say that it was his palace, he could if he wanted to, but then she remembered that he was trying. Whatever else he was doing, he was trying, and that meant that she should as well.
“Sure,” she said, and when she scooted aside, he took his seat next to her, closer than she thought he would be. Suddenly she was aware all over again of the size and strength of him, and she found herself looking at his hands.
“What?” he asked.
“You have nice hands,” she said without thinking, and instead of asking her why she had said such a silly thing or laughing at her, Kashif made a noise of surprise.
“You think so? I don't know if anyone's ever said anything like that to me before.”
“Well, you do, but you're not here to talk about your hands or my hair.”
“No. What I'm here to do is to apologize.”
“Really?”
She stared, because in her experience, men didn't apologize for jealous fits. Instead it was their women who had to find it in themselves to fix things, to smooth things over. She wasn't going to do anything of the sort, but she hadn't expected him to take the first step.
“Really,” Kashif said, clearly unaware of her surprise. “I behaved as I should not have done, and if we end up as a piece of gossip in the Inquiry, it'll absolutely be my fault and not yours.
“I mean, the Inquiry is really more about hard-hitting exposés of corruption, but yes. Kashif, why did you do that?”
She wasn't sure that she was going to get a good answer out of him, but to her surprise, he looked down, studying his hands as if he really wanted to figure out what she saw in them.
“Because I was jealous,” he said. “It had nothing to do with how you were
standing or what you were doing. It had nothing to do with you at all... and at once, everything to do with you.”
“I don't know if I'm following.”
Kashif shot her an amused glance.
“Do you think it is so impossible that I would miss my wife and grow jealous of someone who had more of her time than I did?”
“Honestly? Maybe a little. Jealous… you're jealous?”
“It is not an emotion I care for!” Kashif said with a laugh. “Quite unbecoming a man of my age and my reputation. It's something for young idiots who are unsure of themselves and who worry that their worth is only measured in the regard of others.”
“And that's not you.”
“I hope not. But today, all I could think was that I had not seen you, and that I wanted to, and that when I opened the door, I saw you standing there with another man.”
Kashif shook his head with chagrin. Honey suspected that in the hour or so since they had parted in the library, he had been thinking this over.
“The whys and wherefores of it, in the end, do not matter,” he said. “What does matter is that you did not deserve that scene in the library, and it will not happen again.”
Honey was silent. It was what she did when there was too much information coming at her at once, and right now, this felt like too much information. Kashif was jealous. Of her? It seemed incredibly unlikely.
“That’s all I wanted to say,” Kashif said. “It seems as if I am always doomed to apologize to you. Perhaps in the future, I can—”
“At breakfast,” Honey said suddenly, and Kashif paused.
“At breakfast?”
She nodded. She had to speak against her throat closing up. It felt like too much to reach out as much as Kashif was, but she knew she had to. What they were doing together, what they were trying to build in Allatf, it was worth it. It deserved every chance they could give it, and that meant that she had to get over this.
“At breakfast. You should tell me when you want to see me. Fatima says that nothing's really set in stone until a few hours before, and for a sheikha, maybe not even then. I really … I really hate standing people up or not being able to meet my expectations. If there's something you want me for—”
“There is always something I want you for,” Kashif said flirtatiously, but she ignored him. “If there is something you want me for, just tell me. I'll make the time. I want to.”
She trailed to a stop. She felt as if the sky was winding up and getting ready to throw a big thunderbolt at her for daring to presume that Kashif wanted to spend time with her, that he was willing to plan ahead to make it happen.
To her great fear, Kashif didn't nod or agree or do anything like that. Instead, he only stared at the water for a few moments before mournfully shaking his head.
“It was dumb,” she said swiftly. “I'm sorry, we can…”
Before she could get the rest of the words out, before she could flail back from her suggestion as if it were made from pure poison, Kashif leaned over and covered her mouth with his palm. His hand was warm, and on his wrist, she could smell the touch of his cologne, something woodsy and altogether delicious.
“All right,” he said gently. “You have said a lot of words there. Now it's my turn to speak, all right? And I would very much like it if you let me speak without interrupting me. I would like you to consider my words without automatically thinking they mean the worst for you, but I will settle for you letting me speak, yes?”
She nodded hesitantly, and Kashif pulled his hand away.
“That won't work because this can't and shouldn't just be me,” he said earnestly. “You are not a servant I can call with a buzzer. You are not someone who needs to spend any time with me at all unless she wants to. We both have our professional responsibilities, public appearances and what not, but truthfully, those are not so very numerous or lengthy.”
He paused, and now it seemed to be his turn to be cautious and unsure. It struck her with a kind of wonder that Kashif, a man like Kashif who had the whole world in his hand, could be cautious and unsure over her.
“I want you want it too,” he said, his voice as stiff as she had ever heard it. “I want you to want to be with me as much as I want to be with you.”
“How much do you want to be with me?”
He laughed in surprise.
“It's not something that I can quantify, as easy as it might make things,” he said. “But how about this? What if we are just honest with each other? I want to see you and I say so. You want to see me, and you say so. Simple, isn't it?”
“It should be,” Honey said. “It feels as if life is never that easy.”
“Maybe it could be. If we made it so.”
Honey nodded slowly. She had no idea if she really believed him, but it came to her suddenly: she wanted to.
“I'll tell you when I want to see you,” she promised. “And … yes.”
“Good,” Kashif said, and then he paused.
“I have missed this,” he said quietly. “I didn't know, how could I, but I have missed you.”
“For how long?” Honey asked, attempting to tease, but the look on Kashif's face was oddly solemn.
“For my entire life, it feels like.”
It should have been too much. It would have been too much if somewhere deep within her, her own heart hadn’t leaped in both joy and recognition. No matter how strange it was, no matter how impossible it was, it was exactly how she felt as well.
She opened her mouth to tell him that, and then Kashif leaned in, his mouth seeking hers with a kind of perfect magnetism that she had never considered before. After a single instant of shock and surprise, she was kissing him as fiercely as he was kissing her, her hands grabbing at his tunic as if she would never let him go, her tongue seeking his with a need that was fierce and hot.
He was so good, he tasted so good, he felt so good, and suddenly, she had no idea why she wasn't simply doing this all the time, furious about the time they had wasted, unwilling to wait a single moment more.
Kashif's hand splayed over her back, warm and large and supportive even as he drew her closer to him. This close, she could feel the heat of his body straight through his clothes, and she knew he could feel hers in the same way. It was good, so very good, and when she felt the barest sharpness of his teeth against her lower lip, all she could do was moan in need.
Then the world shifted as he moved to shift them to their backs on the ground, and sense reasserted itself. They were in the open. They hadn't had the time to decide on anything, and their truce, as new as it was, felt simply too new and too fragile to bear the weight of what they were doing right now.
She realized that Kashif could feel the change in her, because he paused, shifting his weight to one elbow so he could prop himself up and look at her.
“What's the matter?” he asked. “Are you all right? Did I push you too hard?”
“No, no,” she said, because there was a part of her that cried out to be pushed that hard and even harder. “No, it's just … too fast. We need, that is, I need some time. That's all.”
She held her breath, wondering if he would be angry or cold, but instead, he only smiled ruefully.
“Well, that I can give you,” he said, and then he put his arm around her.
She waited, tense, to see if he would push, if he would demand, but instead, he only sat with her as the sky darkened and went dim and the first hazy stars came out. His body was warm next to hers, and it felt so good and so sweet. Almost against her will, she found herself relaxing against him with a soft sigh, and in that moment, there was nothing at all wrong in all the world.
Chapter Eight
Kshif
The gala was gorgeous, held in the great glass arboretum that was one of the capital's most prized attractions. It felt as if all the stars had come to earth to attend, and with Honey on his arm, Kashif felt as if things were finally beginning to move in the right direction.
“I can't get over how bea
utiful this place is,” Honey said, looking around with her hand lightly on his arm. Kashif gave himself a moment to think about how pleased he was that she was so close to him before he answered.
“My mother's work, actually,” he said. “She loved gardens and plants, actually studied horticulture before she married my father. It was always her dream to see this place fully restored.”
Honey gave Kashif a glance that was oddly shy despite the poise and grace she had shown with the crowd during the earlier portion of the event.
“My mother liked to garden too,” she offered. “Before she got sick, she was so proud of the garden in the back.”
She looked as if she were expecting him laugh at her for comparing her mother to his, and his heart squeezed painfully for all the times she had been teased or mocked about her family.
“What did she grow there?” he asked. “Flowers?”
“Flowers, yes, but most often things that could feed us. Our house didn't have much in the way of a backyard, but there was a decent garden plot in the back that my mother made much bigger and much more elaborate. One year, well – um, you probably don't want to hear this, do you?”
Kashif took a tighter grip on her arm, because right then, all he wanted was to shield her from whoever had made her that nervous to talk about something that was obviously so very important to her.
“I will hear you talk no matter when or how you want to do it,” he promised her, and he was rewarded with a tremulous smile.
“It's not much really,” she said. “One year, my mother completely underestimated how many zucchini plants we needed. There were just so many, and we learned to cook them about a zillion ways. We got so sick of them by the end, just bushels of zucchini every time we turned around, and by the end, we couldn't even give them away. I don't know if I can ever eat a zucchini again, it was all kind of awful.”
She sighed a little, and then laughed, shaking her head.
“I don't know if I've ever told anyone that before.”